With too many companies to list battling it out for users in the live mobile video broadcasting space, spreading the word is key. Most people just don’t realize such a thing is possible; outside of geekier circles, the entire concept is still fairly new. Stream a live video from your handset and send the link off to some friends that don’t lurk blogs and social sites all day – chances are they’ll be more amazed by the fact that you’re streaming live video from a phone than they are by the content.
Many of these services have turned to outside networks to get the word out, enabling users to automatically share their content out to their already established circle of friends. Just recently, for example, both Qik and FlixWagon added support for Nokia’s Share on Ovi service. That’s all well and good for reaching the geek crowds – but what about everyone else?
This evening, Qik is announcing that they are the first to roll out Facebook Connect support, which could potentially introduce the concept to a massive new group of people.
As they’re leveraging Facebook Connect, they’re able to post videos directly to your video collection or wall without requiring the user to install additional Facebook apps. It’s as simple as could be for the user looking to share, but not without its faults: due to a limitation of the Facebook Connect API, videos can’t be streamed live directly onto Facebook, only posted after the fact. As an alternative, however, users can opt to publish a status update which links directly to their live video whenever they’re streaming.
The update is being rolled out immediately. As it’s a user profile setting, no updates are needed to the handset software. To get things going, users just log into Qik, pop into the “Edit Networks” screen, and authorize Qik as you would any Facebook Connect service.
Over time, however, all handsets will see updates which improve upon the new functionality. Available immediately is an update for non-touch Windows Mobile smartphones which allows users to pick-and-choose which videos they want pushed to Facebook. On other handsets, for the time being, Facebook will be updated with all Qik videos set as “public”.
This is a huge move for Qik and, as I’d imagine that all of the competition is already hard at work at rolling in Facebook Connect support as well, a huge move for the concept as a whole. Facebook is amongst a small handful of social networks that have really breached the main stream. Integrate a product properly, and you’ll be pitching your wares to one of the few online audiences that isn’t almost entirely geeks.
Qik’s quality is terrible though.
The feature doesn’t really improve that.
Qik is a $500 million dollar company. IPO soon?
hahahahah….right.
c’mon, IPO in this economy – yeah right
Unfortunately Qik has no longer term advantage. This technology will be easier and easier to replicate.
Their iPhone app crashes all the time for me also
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter is easy to replicate too but no one has a thought to do this, because it is stupid compete with them. The same is Qik.
Good stuff Bhaskar. I saw your test posts today on Facebook. As an iPhone owner I am simply waiting for what I hope is the upcoming 3rd gen iPhone so I can finally Qik all over the place.
Wow, good to know this is news. Word on the street is that @ev took a shit at twitter today an it looked like Mike Arrington. others thought it looked like Virgin Mary. Are you guys on the scene perhps even with Qik taking note?
Quality is bad on Qik versus the others.
Cool feature, but not really big news.
exactly, cool feature but nothing special.
Who are the other (”too many to list or too lazy to list?”) companies doing this? Who is doing it best?
I do need help installing FB connect on my Wp blog :-)
I think qik quality is very good, great new service
Qik is not so bad. I think it can improve traction.
Too late, too little.
That,s great i think its really helpful for users
Limitations in the Facebook connect API? Even if there weren’t, Facebook currently checks uploaded videos for content and copyrights, as do many other sites. You can’t do that live, so these sites may continue dragging their heels in terms of adopting this capability.
I think real-time video streaming from a phone is really cool, but I just hope it doesn’t end up being something to do when we’re NOT on the phone. Also, is there any reason this technology can’t be used for videoconferencing?